Guest Post: The D Word

by StillStanding1

A sunrise over a remote lake is an annual part of the life I choose for myself.  
Choose something beautiful for you.

I wanted to show up today to talk to some of our newer arrivals; those of you who don’t yet know what warriors you are and are reeling or are in full-on “try to save and fix everything” mode. I am more than 3 1/2 years out from D-Day and, looking back, would never have believed it would be possible to be where I am. I would have been a little mad/annoyed/not ready to listen to the Me now. In those first, shuddering, pain-filled months, all I wanted was for my husband to wake up, get his head out of his ass and see what he was going to lose. And to stop hurting.

I don’t come to the site daily anymore. While I care deeply about the friends and connections I’ve made and feel so much empathy and compassion for the endless, tragic string of new arrivals, infidelity and triggers just aren’t an influential part of my daily life anymore. And I've begun to feel that my experience as a divorced, single person post-infidelity, lines up less and less with what I read in the posts and comments. I think that’s okay. New folks are showing up and Chinook inspires with her fire and words; it’s like a changing of the guards (hear the rattle of swords and line up to get the dirt smudged under your eyes) but I can continue to show up and hold space for that.

But it has also been suggested to me that my experience and voice may still be relevant, especially for those who choose or have divorce chosen for them. Even for those of you who feel physically ill at the idea of divorce (like I did), it's important to know that it doesn’t have to be all fear, failure, loss, struggle and poverty. You can come out the other side a stronger, healthier, more confident person. I can’t tell you exactly how that will go for you because we are all different, but I do know you have to choose it and pursue it (even if you have no idea what the hell you are doing when you start).

I’m on my own healing journey and without the perp (my ex-husband) in my face daily, I don’t have the same challenges to navigate. I have different ones but I worry that talking about them on this site will trigger and terrify new arrivals. I know when I first got there, the last thing I wanted to look at closely was even the possibility of divorce, let alone wrap my head around the idea that I would end up better-than-fine. One of the biggest things to accept? That ending my marriage has been one of the best things to happen to me for a long time. It has freed me to work on and release old patterns and learn to value myself. Yes, my ex is still around (he comes to my home two nights a week for dinner with our son). But I am not obligated to make it work if it doesn’t work for me. I’m not required to deal with his shit when he tries to push past boundaries. And while he is working on improving as a human being, he manages to remind me how far he still has to go just regularly enough that I don’t feel anything much like regret. Not anymore. 

Instead, I have worked at crafting a life I can be proud of and a story I am willing to claim as mine. I pursued volunteer work that has led to friendships and connections that fill me up. There are real people in my life who love and value me, in all my flawed weirdness. I have learned to love myself and treat my time and health with care. I’ve been working on trusting myself, both with personal life decisions and in my business. I committed to growing my business so it could support me after the alimony runs out, and I’m doing it. I am succeeding. I learned all about money and budgeting because not being in control of your finances is the source of a lot of fear for a lot of us. And I’ve done a lot of work in therapy and on my own to bring old stories and unhelpful beliefs into the clean light of day.

I’ve even dated a little and learned a lot about myself in the process. It’s not for the faint or fragile, let me tell you. When you are still raw from the massive rejection of a spouse choosing to cheat, even the tiniest rejection (a guy doesn’t follow up when he says he will or ghosting or any of that stupid dating stuff) feels much bigger than it really is. I started dating way too soon, mostly out of a need to prove to myself that someone, anyone was going to want me. But what I learned was that people who barely knew me could treat me with kindness, be thoughtful, be affectionate and that I had been starved of that in my marriage. I decided that I had to find, create or be a source of that for myself, to be whole before I went looking for someone else. And where I’ve landed with the whole dating thing now is that I’m not in a rush. My life is full. I’m proud of who I am and I don’t need a romantic partner to be complete. Of course, I’d love to have a best friend who gets me and thinks I’m awesome and all the closeness that real intimacy can bring but I’m content to wait and see who shows up. And if no one does, that’s okay too. I’m living a good life.

When I look back at everything I’ve done and gone through and all the therapy and coaching and reading and running and meditating, I’m not sure I would have arrived here without the divorce. I needed the space to breathe and explore without those old dance moves getting in the way. And you should know that, after we separated, he tried to come back three times. Each time, I trusted my gut and said no. I knew he hadn’t done the work. I knew, on two of those occasions, that the OW was still in the picture and all he really wanted was for me to rescue him from the mess he had made. So, as I said to him, "I finally choose me".

Do I sometimes still feel like I was robbed of what I thought our future was going to be? Yes but the real talk voice reminds me that that was just my idea of a future and reality was not likely to have been what I imagined, even a little bit. And reality, my life on my own now, is so much richer than I would have believed possible in that first year after D-day. So, blessedly, infidelity and all the complex stuff around it, is becoming a thing that happened, in the past, and without much impact on my day-to-day life. It is diminishing in the rearview mirror with increasing speed. I know I’m fortunate in that regard. I want you to know that no matter how your story goes, if divorce is in your future, you can keep yourself safe. Not by hiding and closing off from the world but by running toward it, by claiming a space for yourself, by loving yourself fiercely, by choosing you.